


Othala Uruz

by singtome



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anti-Only One Bed, Eventual Fluff, M/M, Paganism, Prophetic Dreams, Sharing a Bed, Too many beds but you're staying right here, canon divergence: limpless newt, mostly because i forgot to include it F, references to mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28315719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singtome/pseuds/singtome
Summary: He woke in the dark, knowing all of three things:The first: he was in the woods, alone, and he was cold and wet.The second: he knew his name was Thomas.Finally, the third: he was unsure if he had died, or if he had just been born.
Relationships: Newt/Thomas (Maze Runner)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 50
Collections: Maze Runner Secret Santa 2020





	Othala Uruz

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anglophileadventures](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anglophileadventures/gifts).



> Before you ask, yes that tag is legit and yes I did forget the limp, but from this point on we won't talk about it.
> 
> Hi Jo, MERRY CHRISTMAS!! I hope you have a fantastic day, and a happy new year. You wanted something out-of-the-box/a re-imagining of the maze, so here it is! Writing this fic for you was an absolute blast and I hope you enjoy it. Lots of love, Santa <3

_"That is the Minotaur's noise," whispered Ariadne, closely grasping the hand of Theseus, and pressing one of her own hands to her heart, which was all in a tremble. "You must follow that sound through the windings of the labyrinth, and, by and by, you will find him."_

\- From _Theseus and The Minotaur_

_______

He woke in the dark, knowing all of three things: 

The first: he was in the woods, alone, and he was cold and wet. 

The second: he knew his name was Thomas. 

Finally, the third: he was unsure if he had died, or if he had just been born. 

When the drumming song reached his ears, Thomas gasped, jerking up off the ground so fast his head shook with it, and wiped the dirt and leaves off his face with a furious hand. Upon touching his cheek, he was shocked to find them wet and shocked even more to discover that he was crying. Thomas blinked feverishly to sharpen his vision, eyes adjusting to the darkness. Squinting, he saw a faint orange glow somewhere in the woods, possibly leading to a clearing of some kind. 

_I’m cold,_ he thought. _Where am I? What am I doing here?_ He also thought. 

Thomas rose to his feet and staggered, quick to right himself when his ankle rolled on a piece of fallen wood. The palms of his hands and the calf muscles in his legs burned, and when he looked down, Thomas found the skin worn like he’d caught himself against stone or the harsh bark of a tree. 

The drumming grew louder in the distance, but Thomas did not become aware of it until a shadow caught his vision behind the trees. This shadow was different from the shadows of the forest; this shadow moved. It ran, and leaves and twigs cracked under its feet. 

Before Thomas could harness the thought to move, his legs were already doing it for him, and he was running, too. 

The drums grew louder, and the crunch of the forest floor under his feet louder still. The person chasing him had begun to hoot, a strange animalistic call that came across as menacing and derogative. Mocking. 

He had no idea where he was going—the woods were dense and unaccommodating, and soon enough, Thomas found himself bursting through into a clearing, his lungs burning in his chest, blood pumping into his ears. 

And he became aware of three things: 

The first: he was very much _not_ alone. 

The second: he did not remember much of anything at all, but he was almost positive he’d never seen a fire as tall as the one he stared up at in that moment, stretching ten to twenty feet in the air, orange embers floating up towards the black abyss of the night sky. 

And, finally, the third: if he was not already dead, he was about to be. 

_Hell is empty, and all the devils are here._

The words had been etched into the ceiling above his head, which pounded when he woke. Candlelight flickered in the corner of the room and burned Thomas’s eyes, and when he groaned and rolled away from it, he was surprised to find he was in a bed. It was not the most comfortable, but it was a bed all the same, and, regardless, Thomas did not remember having ever laid in a bed before, only the vague semblance of an idea that he must have, at one point. 

_I know my name_ , he thought, _but I don’t know how old I am or what I look like. But I remember lying in a bed and know that this one feels like concrete._

When a voice from the corner of the room, the one where the orange glow of the flame did not reach, uttered the words, “Oh you’re a _mumbler_. Fantastic. We needed more of those ‘round here,” he discovered that the floor was much, _much_ harder than the bed. 

A boy emerged from the shadows in the corner, palms facing outward as Thomas jumped up, bumping his elbow in the process. 

“It’s just, you know,” the boy said, standing now. He was taller than Thomas but only just, with dark blonde hair that curled down below his chin, “If you talk in your sleep, you’ll be out with the goats. I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules.” 

“Stay away from me!” Thomas shouted, backing himself against the wall. He looked between the boy and the door left ajar, light from the outside spilling into the room, and calculated the chances of making it out before the boy sprung and knocked him out again. 

“Easy, mate,” he said, and Thomas noticed his accent, then. Different to his, but in a way that Thomas couldn’t quite put his finger on. Perhaps that might come back, and maybe all the other memories will come along with it. 

“Where am I? What happened?” Thomas demanded. 

The boy took a deep breath, allowing his hands to fall to his sides. In a trick of the eye, the tips of his fingers appeared stained gold. 

“You’re in the Glade, shuck knows where,” he answered, “As to what happened—” the boy pushed away from the wall, moving closer to Thomas. An amused grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, “—you came running out of the woods like a headless cow yelling and screaming like you’ve shit your pants, and then fainted.” 

A cold, horrified feeling spread through Thomas. 

The boy continued, “You didn’t shit your pants, don’t worry. I’m Newt, by the way,” he said, holding a hand out as if he fully expected Thomas to shake it, like he would have been able to lift his hand and not have it trembling something awful. “If you don’t remember your name, that’s okay. Nothing to worry about, really, sometimes it takes a while for Greenies to get that bit back.”

“I know what my name is,” Thomas said, “And I was being chased.”

One of Newt’s golden eyebrows quirked with faint amusement, and he said, “I strongly disagree with that.” 

A flow of disbelief washed over Thomas at those words. “Yes,” he said, “I _was_. There was—there was a thing.” 

“A thing?”

“It was a thing.”

“Well,” Newt said, “There are plenty of things out in the Glade. Can you be more specific?” 

Thomas felt himself grow angrier by the second.

“It was _chasing me_.”

“You said that already,” Newt said, placing a hand on his chest. His gestures were slow and intentional as if he feared any too quick movements would spook Thomas. “And I said you were wrong.” 

The light spilling into the room from the crack in the door allured Thomas the more he looked at it like a moth to a flame. _Go out there_ , a little voice in the back of his mind whispered to him, _go go go_. 

Newt was still speaking, “Listen, I know what you’re feeling, okay? We’ve all been through it, and I promise to try and explain what’s happening as best as I can after you get some more sleep—where are you going? _Hey!_ ”

Thomas ran past Newt as quick as he could and slipped through the door even faster, feeling a tug on the back of his collar where Newt’s fingers tried to grab but slipped. Out in the hall were dozens of boys ranging in age from young to even younger, all looking at Thomas like he had two heads. 

(Did he have two heads? To be honest, Thomas hadn’t had the chance to check his reflection to make sure.)

He pushed through all of them with Newt at his back, calling out to him, voice intermixed with the other boys who shouted profanities and made offensive gestures as he ran past, whistled and laughed and cackled when he burst through the door into the wide-open night and saw— 

He saw— 

Again, the fire and other boys, so many of them, each dancing around the burning wood, hooting and cheering and singing. Some of them sat on the ground or laid on it and stared at the sky, but most of them were up. 

All heads turned towards Thomas in perfect sync. Most of them wore masks. Horrible things, with wild spikes and horns and faces twisted into terrible grins, and eyes as black as coal. 

Embers floated back down to the earth once again, re-joining the fire, and the world at the corners of his vision began to curl in on themselves, charred, and soon enough, it turned black once again.

Thomas did not think he remembered what the ocean looked like at midnight, but he must have as that was the only way to describe the deep, murky blackness of hair that belonged to the girl he dreamed of that night. It seemed to be a pattern, he also thought, this black orange black orange light _black black black_ as every time he opened his eyes some other color thought it appropriate to assault his vision, give him an instant headache that made his head spin and sent him back down to that ocean of black once again. 

He did not know this girl, but he must have. 

In the dream, she was standing far away from him—no, she was kneeling on the ground, her bare knees grass-stained as was her skirt, and her blouse was muddied. She did not speak to him, specifically, but whispered to herself over and over. What her words were, Thomas could not make out. 

She had her hands over her face. 

And on the back of them we eyes, the black stark against her ivory skin, and painted as blue as he somehow knew her real eyes were. 

Thomas woke up— 

In the same bed as before, much in the same position, however this time he had the faint inclination that several days had passed. 

Someone said, “Minho, he’s stirring!” 

And someone else responded, in a harsh whisper, “Good! Leave him!”

It took Thomas a minute to fully open his eyes, and when he did, there was the face of a young boy hovering above him, with wild curls and curious brown eyes. They stared at one another for a handful of moments, until the boy’s mouth curled into a mischievous grin and he surged forward, hissing, “ _Boo!_ ” in Thomas’s face. 

High, satisfactory cackles exploded from his chest when Thomas started, crying out and flailing in the bed. 

“Ha! Scared you!” The boy said, continuing to laugh until he received a heavy smack on the back of his head, ruffling long chocolate curls, which worked in shutting him up pretty quick. 

“Waking up to see your ugly mug ‘aughta scare anyone, you useless shank.”

The boy snorted. “Speaking of ugly …”

“Chuck. Out. _Now_.”

The boy, Chuck, did not leave the room as instructed, but rather pulled up a chair comfortably in the corner, in the same place Newt had been. 

It occurred to Thomas that he may have cursed himself to wake up in the same room, over and over. 

The room looked different in the daytime, less claustrophobic. Thomas noticed things such as a sweater thrown carelessly over a small dresser on the opposite wall and several peculiar wall hangings. Above his head, besides the subscription, was a mobile made from foraged sticks and bells. On the opposite wall were various leaves and twigs sewn together into three different shapes, one being an eye, the second a Y with an extra arm in the middle, and the third a star. 

Possibly the strangest trinket in the room was the brass cage by the door, full of moths. 

The other person in the room approached Thomas’s bed. He did not spare so much as a single glance in Thomas’s direction, but rather sank to his knees and began to rifle through the drawer of the small, rickety bedside table. The table itself was worn, old, and looked like it would not have lasted one more patch up. 

“You really do talk a lot,” he said, “Shit. Newt wasn’t kidding. I took the liberty of writing it all down for you. Here.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and held it out to Thomas, who gingerly took it. 

A sense of fear rose in Thomas’s chest at the thought of looking at the paper. Minho was still rifling through the drawer and Chuck had begun to swing himself in the chair, the back hitting the wall in an off-rhythm of _Clack. Clack. Clack._

The paper had all of one word written on it, and that was a name. The name was Teresa. 

“Who—?” Thomas began. 

Minho cut him off. He hunched his back and tilted his head in an attempt to peer into the drawer, his dark hair falling in front of his face like a curtain. “No idea. But hers was the only name you said, over and over again. Must be a very special lady.”

Before Thomas could say another word, Minho slammed the drawer shut and swore, standing up. Chuck halted his swinging. 

“Shuck,” he said. “I need to find Newt. Chuckles.” Chuck sat up straight. “Help our new greenie get some fresh air and show him around. Oh, I guess congratulations are in order, seeing as you’ve graduated from green bean to shit-shoveler. Have fun with that.” 

Chuck’s grin fell down a couple of levels. 

“Wait!” Thomas shouted at Minho’s back, who paused and turned with his hand on the door, and an irritated pinch in his brow. “What is this place?” 

The irritated pinch morphed into a puzzled frown, and Minho only said, “You’re in the Glade.” 

After thirty minutes of Chuck showing Thomas around the Glade, Thomas began to hash out a plan to slip away as quietly and discreetly as possible. The number one item on the list was to wait until he had to use the bathroom, which he figured was bound to happen eventually. Until then, Thomas was subjected to being dragged left, right and center around the giant field ceremoniously dubbed the Glade. 

The Glade was large. It was breathtakingly large, and in fact Thomas found that he couldn’t look at any which direction for too long before a dreadful dizziness overcame him, and he had to sit. This was ordinary, Chuck reassured him, as Thomas sat with his head between his knees, the damp grass soaking through the fabric of his shorts. “It took me almost a week to stop puking,” Chuck said, wiping his nose with the back of his wrist. 

They continued with their tour, Chuck hyperactive and Thomas a bit greener. 

The Glade had four points that Thomas could see. On one side was a small body of water, where boys wearing rubber boots stood in knee-deep, collecting pales of water, occasionally messing around. On the other side looked like a sort of camp area, where the faint smell of cooking meat reached his nostrils. Then, a little way from that was the Homestead, where Thomas had been dragged from, and where most of the boys slept (most, because surrounding that was huts built from straw, and hammocks below them). Then, finally, was the forest. Somehow it appeared even more terrible in the day. 

The most significant feature was the four walls that surrounded the Glade, stretching hundreds of feet above their heads. 

When the sun hit its highest peak in the sky, Chuck announced he was hungry and walked off towards the smell of cooking meat without another word or asking Thomas if he was hungry, too. He wasn’t, still feeling nauseous, which Chuck probably realized. 

It didn’t take long for Thomas to spot Newt by the corner that led into the forest. He sat cross-legged on top of a stone winding rope and sticks to create a sort of triangle shape, surrounded by three other boys who copied his movements clumsily. He did not look up until Thomas stood at the edge of their circle, even though the other boys stopped their work to stare at Thomas from the moment he began to approach, leaning their heads together and whispering. 

“Greenie,” Newt said, looking up at Thomas with a faint smile that translated more sarcastic than earnest, his eyes squinting against the sun.

Thomas felt a prickle of annoyance pinch his brow. “My name is Thomas,” he said. 

“We’re all so proud,” Newt replied. Then to the boys, he said, “Alright, sad sacks. The lesson's over. Go get some food in you so you’ll be of use to me later. Go on. Shoo.” 

Reluctantly, the boys left in a slow dawdle over to the campsite, as if they were hoping to catch a bit of conversation not meant for them. Newt did not speak, or even acknowledge Thomas’s presence until they were all gone, however, and when he did it was to ask, “How are you enjoying your first day in the Glade?”

His attention remained on the object he was weaving, tying a shorter stick horizontally at the triangle’s point. 

“It’s confusing.”

“Sounds about right,” Newt said. The way he spoke was different from the others and Thomas himself. He did not know why, but the answer sits on the tip of his tongue, unable to be reached. “I guess I have to apologize for that. Our welcoming committee is lacking these days. But we have a lot to do to prepare for the next few months, so you get Chuck. Sorry about that. He treating you well?”

“What’s happening in the next few months?” Thomas asked. 

Newt said, “I’ll explain that later.” 

“You keep saying that, and it never happens.”

“You,” Newt said, pointing a stick at Thomas’s nose, “need to work on your patience. I said I would, and I will, okay? Good things come to those who wait, Tommy, alright? In fact, I’ve got something for you right now. Might clear a couple things up.” 

Newt pinched his thumb and index finger together—still tipped in gold, more evident now in the sunlight—and blew an ear-piercing whistle that rang on the inside of Thomas’s head. Then he shouted, “Ben!” and a handful of moments later a boy appeared out of the woods behind them, looking sheepish. He was blonde, a lighter blonde than Newt, and tall, and covered in mud. 

“Benny,” Newt said, smiling warmly up at Ben, “this is Tommy, our new greenie. Tommy, Benny. Now you’re both acquainted. Ben, I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer me honestly. Did you chase our Tommy here in the woods last night?” 

A veil of fear fell over Ben’s face, and he muttered, “Uh—well—I—”

“What did I just say about honesty?” 

“Yeah,” Ben said. Thomas felt his jaw fall slack. “I did. Sorry.” 

“To _Thomas_.”

“Sorry,” Ben repeated, looking Thomas in the eye. Then he left in the direction of the food, like everyone else. 

Thomas watched him go. He was greeted half way by four or five other boys, slinging an arm around his shoulders, and another jumped on his back. 

Newt signed and put the triangle down carefully beside him. 

Thomas said, “But that couldn’t have been Ben, I saw horns, and—”

As slowly as he’d dropped the triangle, Newt pulled a mask out from behind his back, hidden by the stone. “Like this?” 

“Yes …”

“It was a bullshit initiation stunt,” Newt said. “Minho keeps telling them to stop, but the shanks won’t bloody listen. Three greenies ago, someone ended up with a broken leg and another with a bloody nose after the greenie swung a tree branch. Even with a messed-up nose, Gally is still just as much of a shithead, let me tell you.” 

“I don’t get it,” Thomas said. 

“Neither do I. Such is life.” 

Walking to the campsite, Newt’s stomach rumbling over the smell of the food, and Thomas rumbling for other reasons, he asked, “What’s behind the forest?”

Newt said, “More forest.”

“And what’s behind that?” 

Newt turned on him, whipping around so fast Thomas had to take several steps back the stop from smashing into him. Even still, Newt was close, close enough that Thomas could smell pine and smoke on his skin, and something spicey on his breath. The ends of his eyelashes were dipped in gold, as well, like the color of his hair, and a voice in the back of Thomas’s mind wondered if they shone like the tips of his fingers under the moonlight. 

“Absolutely nothing,” Newt whispered lowly. “Okay? There is nothing else beyond that forest. This, the Glade, is all there bloody is. Do you hear me? Now stop asking questions for five minutes and eat.” 

Thomas glared. “I’m not hungry.” 

Newt glared back. The two stood in the middle of the clearing, caught in a trance of anger and frustration until the sound of a bell chiming three times in succession broke their spell. Newt stepped back first, shrugging. 

“Suit yourself,” he said and turned and left without another word or a backward glance. 

_________

During his first week in the Glade, Thomas made some mistakes. 

The first was asking Chuck to describe to him how he looked. 

(The pond was too murky to get a good look, and he never managed to catch a pale of water before it was put to use)

It ended about as well as he imagined it would, but he still asked the question anyway. 

The second mistake was asking out loud if there were any girls in the Glade. This was met with mixed results, where half the boys in hearing range began to whistle, make obnoxious noises and obscene gestures with their hands, and the others it just made angry. Like they had asked that question previously, perhaps several times. 

“No girls,” Chuck simply answered, leaning on his shovel. “Only boys, ever since I’ve been here, and— _Yeah, I’m digging!_ —and ever since everyone else has been here, from what I’ve gathered.” 

“Why?” Thomas asked, stabbing his shovel pathetically into the dirt. 

Chuck gave him an are-you-for-real? look, and continued to make no attempt to dig. “You seriously just asked me that question.” He shook his head, snorting with laughter. “He seriously just asked me that question. Dude. I’ve been here a month. If you want to know so bad, ask Newt. Or Minho. He’s been here longer.” 

“Longer?”

“What? You think whoever took our memories and threw us in this concrete box did it all at once. Once a month. One boy. One at a time.”

Thomas felt his spirit fall through his feet. “One at a time?” he whispered, “So you mean Minho was here all alone for an entire month?”

Chuck turned to Thomas, and the look he gave was unreadable. He said, “Minho wasn’t the first.” 

“Who was the first?”

Chuck leaned on the end of his shovel. “His name was Alby. He was in charge before Minho and Newt took over. I never met him, though. He was gone for almost a year before I got here.” 

“Gone?” Thomas asked, “What do you mean _gone?_ ” 

Chuck shrugged. “I can’t say. No one would give me a straight answer if I ask, and if I were you, I wouldn’t ask. Especially not Newt. From what I heard, he and Alby were close, you know? Like—” he wagged his eyebrows suggestively, and Thomas had to look away. “Anyway. He ended up disappearing. And him disappearing is the reason the keepers guard the maze so well, so no one can wander in again.” 

Thomas felt a light turn on in the forefront of his mind, and it whispered _Maze Maze Maze_. 

“What?”

“What what?”

“Maze. You said _maze_.” 

“I did? No, I didn’t. Your ears must be full of wax.” 

“No, I heard you. You said maze. Chuck?” Chuck went back to digging and was now actively ignoring Thomas. “Chuck, is there a maze out there?” 

“Hey!” The keeper at the edge of the field shouted at him. Thomas forgot what his name was a second after he said it. “Get back to work! I won’t tell you again!” 

Pure darkness veiled his sleep that night, and Thomas dreamed of the woods and moths. 

The moths were made of amber light and danced in his field of vision. When one came close enough to make out the details on its wings, they were intricate, golden lettering and images telling stories in the night sky. When Thomas held out his hand, one of them landed on it, wings a blur. The tips of its tiny legs were dipped in gold, like Newt’s fingers. 

Then, again, he saw the girl. 

She was staring straight at him, her eyes glowing a luminous, supernatural blue in the dark. Her feet were bare and brown with mud. 

When she saw him, and saw him seeing her, she began to run. 

And Thomas ran after her.

“Wait!” he cried, but she did not stop. He begged for her to stop or slow down, but it didn’t appear that his voice reached her ears. Finally, Thomas thought of the paper he was given by Minho in the room in the Homestead and the name that was written there, and he shouted, “Teresa!” 

She stopped. 

She stopped running. 

The wind blew her hair in every which direction, and her dress billowed around her ankles, also stained with mud. Thomas opened his mouth, thinking of a million things to say, but nothing came out before she was there, suddenly, three inches from his face, so close Thomas could count the freckles on her nose. The thought crossed his mind that she was taller than she should be. 

She whispered, “ _Go_.”

And Thomas woke. 

As reluctant as it was, the general consensus was that Thomas would temporarily move into spare room at the Homestead so he would not keep waking the others up with his dreams. 

Which he had a lot, almost every night, and nearly all he woke up from screaming. 

Along with the dreams came, on occasion, hallucinations. After he woke from a nightmare, it was to frozen limbed terror, where he thought he saw creatures lurking at the edge of a forest, and shouted inside his mind until the rest of his body woke up, too. 

This, despite the blatant relief most of the boys felt over the decision, was met with a wave of jealousy. Chuck rammed into him with his shoulder one morning, on their way to the crop field to shovel more shit, and he said, “How’s the life of luxury treatin’ ya? I wish I had this much special treatment as a greenie. Man, it’s not fair.” 

“I’m not getting any special treatment,” Thomas insisted. In actuality, even if the four walls and the door stifled his sleep talking and sleep wailing, the bed did nothing to help Thomas sleep. Most nights, Thomas woke himself out of a fitful dream and felt afraid to fall back asleep, so he spent the remaining hours until dawn staring up at the words on the ceiling and listening to the moths in the cage. 

Chuck hummed. “Maybe you need some of Gally’s moonshine to knock you out,” he said, and Thomas shuddered at the thought. 

He went to bed in the room. 

He woke in a fit. 

He slept. 

He woke. 

After almost a week of this Thomas heard the door of the room open a crack when he had his head buried beneath the covers, the sound shocking him back up to the surface. By the time he’d pulled all the sheets off his head and moved his hair out of his eyes, Newt had closed the door behind him and was offering his attention to the moths. Sticking the tip of his pinkie finger inside the cage, Newt clicked his tongue, wagging his finger as if they were cats. The tiny insects flocked to him eagerly. 

Thomas realizes suddenly they do not leave the cage despite being small enough to slip through the bars. 

“You’re awake,” Newt said. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Newt,” Thomas began, slowly, working at flattening the rest of his hair, which was left disturbed by the cotton sheets, “Who’s room is this?”

“Mine,” Newt said, “And I’m tired of bunking with Minho. He smells and he snores too loud. So,” he made a shooing motion as he approached the bed, “move over.” 

Thomas moved over so far to the left he nearly toppled off the side. Newt pulled aside the covers and settled comfortably between the sheets at a slow, languid pace, and settled against the pillows with a sigh. His hair spread out on top of the cotton like a halo, white golden threads in the moonlight. 

“Let’s set some ground rules first,” Newt said, holding up one finger. “You stay on your side of the bed, and I’ll stay on mine. If you touch me, you will be sleeping on the floor. Got it?”

The moths fluttered in their cage, and the soft wind rustled the curtains. Newt’s eyes appeared almost black in the night time. His intense gaze tore through Thomas’s flesh and pierced his soul, and Thomas felt a thrill of something rush up his spine. 

“Same goes for you,” he said. 

Newt continued to stare for a collection of heartbeats until the moths settled once more and the breeze returned to the forest. A small grin kissed the corners of his lips as he scoffed and said, “Goodnight, greenie.” 

Turning away from Thomas, Newt leaned over and blew out the candle by the bedside. They slept. 

Thomas slept that night. The girl did not return. 

________

The morning was abuzz with a conversation that Thomas didn’t care for, but unfortunately found himself the center of. As it turns out, some of the boys who were sleeping in the Homestead last night saw Newt enter Thomas’s room—or rather _Newt’s_ room, that Thomas was staying in—and also saw him leave it in the morning. 

People drew their heads together and whispered to each other over breakfast, and Thomas received a couple of dirty looks in line for his daily bowl of slopmeal. The cook, who’s name Thomas recently learned was Frypan, for apparent reasons, gave him a twinkly-eyed sly grin as he poured the cream-white oats into his bowl. Thomas sat alone at a table, ducked his head, and envisioned he was eating an ice cream Sunday while pretending they all didn’t exist. Most of the boys were happy enough to ignore him right back, except for the ones who glared, and the ones who grinned and laughed at his back.

And then, of course, there was Chuck. Ever present, notorious Chuck. 

He jumped on Thomas’s back on their morning walk to the fields, and, right into Thomas’s ear without making any effort to lower his voice, asked, “What’s it like being a man?”

“Go away,” Thomas said, wiping dirt and grass off his sleeve after he pushed Chuck off him and stood up from the ground. 

“Don’t be such a prude!” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Thomas said. 

Chuck’s eye roll defied all realms of logic and managed to break the sound barrier. “Sure, you don’t. Okay. I’ll bite. But you might want to watch your back. And make sure no one’s slipped anything extra in your orange juice.”

“Chuck,” Thomas sighed. He’d only been awake for two hours but he was already exhausted. “I’m being completely serious. I have no idea what you are talking about.” 

“I’m talking about Newt,” Chuck said, “and how he’s paid more attention to you since you got here than he has to half of these shanks their whole life. So that puts you on the naughty list, my friend.” 

Thomas asked, “But why?” and instantly regretted it. 

After Chuck had finished his under-the-breath snickering, and Thomas’s cheeks returned to a regular color, they got to work. This lasted all of ten whole minutes until Thomas spotted Minho in the distance, walking between the campsite and the pond, and dropped his spade. Asking Chuck to cover for him without sparing a glance back to make sure he will, Thomas began his beeline towards Minho. 

He stood at the entrance to the forest, sewing together a large figuration of sticks similar to the ones Newt was building the other day. Over the last few days, Thomas had noticed more of them appearing around the Glade, some hanging from trees and others nailed to posts, or stung up under archways. 

“There he is,” Minho said, standing back to admire his work, “our man of the hour! You know, I haven’t seen a greenie stir up this much noise since Matt swung a tree branch into Gally’s face.” 

“What are all these things?” Thomas asked, “And why are they everywhere?” 

“They’re for protection,” Minho said, both cryptic and confused, much like how he said _The Glade_. It was almost as if both Newt and Minho believed the other was supposed to be explaining everything to him, and they weren’t. “You’ll understand someday.” 

“From what?” Thomas asked, and when Minho went back to tying the sigils to the post without bothering to answer, Thomas continued, “Is it for whatever’s in the maze?” 

Minho dropped the talisman. Furiously he turned on Thomas, eyes narrowed, and cheeks flushed red. “Newt told you about the shuckin’ _maze?”_ he demanded, nostrils flared. 

“Newt didn’t tell me anything,” Thomas said, forcing himself to stay calm. Minho spat on the ground and swore. “Chuck told me. He told me all about what’s through this forest,” he lied. 

“That little shithead doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Minho said, “And who told him, huh?”

“How long have you been here?” Thomas asked, unable to keep the mocking edge out of his tone, “You should know nothing stays quiet for long. I want to know what’s in there. I want to know why you’re keeping it locked tight, and I want to know what really happened to Alby—”

A swift knock to the chest pushed all of the air from Thomas’s lungs as he hit the ground. A stone dug into his spine, and Minho’s knee dug into the center of his chest, cutting off the flow of oxygen into his lungs. Thomas gasped desperately, but Minho did not yield, gripping his collar tight until Thomas felt tears spring to his eyes. 

“Never say that name,” he whispered in a low, threatening hiss, “Do you understand me?”

In the distance, someone shouted. 

Thomas gasped, arms flailing and hitting Minho anywhere he could. 

_“Do you understand me?”_

“ _Hey!”_

Minho was violently torn off Thomas and pulled backward by someone Thomas had only seen from a distance but was never introduced to. He gasped into the earth, rolling onto his stomach and blinking away the tears from his eyes, swallowing down the bile rising up in his throat. Above him, the other keeper asked, “Are you serious?” 

He didn’t sound angry in the slightest. Just exasperated or even annoyed that he had to walk all this way to break them up. 

“Piss off, Gally,” Minho said, straightening his shirt. 

Gally raised his palms. “If you kill him that’s your business, but I’m not the one who has to explain it to Jeff.”

Minho spat on the ground one more time before walking off, fists balled and shoulders squared, towards to Homestead. 

When Gally leaned down towards Thomas, a surge of irrational panic filled him from head to toe, and he flailed, slapping his hand away and crying, “Get off me!” 

“Okay, easy.” 

Thomas rose to his feet, breathing heavily. The spectacle drew in a crowd, as was to be expected, which Gally managed to clear with one look. He said, “Let me guess. You mentioned Alby? Didn’t the little imp already warn you not to do that?”

“I want to know what’s in that forest.”

“What you need to do is take a deep breath,” Gally said.

Chest heaving, Thomas walked off the shock by doing a lap around the small clearing, breathing heavily. “I know it wasn’t Ben who chased me in the forest the first night,” he said.

Gally leveled him with a blank glare. Clouds have drawn in to block the sun. It looked like it might rain.

“Yes, it was.” 

“But not for some stupid initiation, like Newt said.” 

Gally maintained eye content for a handful of hour-long seconds before something shifted on his face, and he said, “If you really want to know what’s in there, go. Take a look. I won’t stop you.”

_________

Pine and mildew assaulted his scenes the moment he stepped into the forest. Like passing through a barrier, Thomas felt a shift in himself and the world around him upon stepping through the threshold. The sound of the wind was louder, as was the crunch of the forest floor beneath his shoe and the shrill cries of the birds that he never saw. Thomas took a deep breath and felt the airflow inside his lungs, burrowing greedily in his chest. 

The forest was alive in the day, as it was at night. He realized it then, standing amongst it, and wonders how he could not see it from the outside. 

He knew Gally was gone without turning back to check, somewhat like how he knew the girl in his dreams had blue eyes when she covered her face. He sees a vision of her now, running through the trees and ducking under bushes and low hanging branches, her pale fingers brushing the rough bark, not giving a single care of her bare feet against rock and stone. 

Thomas walked through the trees for five minutes before he came upon a small clearing beside a stream. Strange formations built from wood and carved from stone littered the forest floor beside the river, and only when Thomas came closer to it, the realization struck that they were gravestones. 

Names were etched into the wood or rock simply by a quick hand, and above them were the bones of animals. Bird skulls, goats, and a ram on the largest one of the group. Thomas expected the name on the stone to read _Alby_ , but instead, it said _George_.

He moved on quickly from there with goosebumps freckling his flesh, and Thomas ran the rest of the way through the forest until he reached a wall. The wall stretched high above the trees, and without having to look too closely, Thomas knew instantly that this was _the wall_ —the border of the Glade that no keeper will allow anyone to come close to. 

Certainly not as close as he was to it now. 

But Thomas was not alone. And he would recognize that golden hair anywhere. 

“You’re late,” he said, without turning around. Thomas held his breath. “I’m nearly done here. Then we can move on to the western door. And before you say anything, yes, Min, so we don’t have a repeat of last year I am weaving the juniper into the bloody pine—” 

Newt turned. He saw Thomas. Thomas saw him seeing him, and Thomas watched as the expression on his face shifted colorfully from shock to embarrassment to anger. 

Newt pounded his fist against the ground. “I knew I couldn’t trust that T-Rex,” he said. “Where’s Minho?” 

Waving his hand pathetically over his shoulder, Thomas stammered out all he could manage, which was, “Campsite.” 

“Shit. What’d you do to him?”

“I mentioned Alby.”

Newt swore. Vehemently. “Asshole, why would you do that?” 

Thomas asked, “What happened here, Newt? You all talk like he died, but why didn’t any of those graves back there have his name on it?”

All the anger that coiled together in the tightness of Newt’s jaw and the sharp angle of his shoulders dissipated into thin air, and he just looked sad when he answered earnestly, “Because there was nothing left to bury.” 

It didn’t end up raining after all, but Thomas felt the forest floor’s natural mildew soak through his pants. He sat quietly to the side and watched Newt finish his ritual in silence, resisting the urge to stand and pace, or take a look around, or hound Newt with more questions, or walk further until he reached the wall to feel what it felt like against the pads of his fingers and maybe even find the door, or— 

“I can hear your brain ticking away,” Newt interrupted his thoughts, making Thomas jump, “And I’m worried it’ll burst. So, if you’re not going to sit still and be quiet so I can work, come here and help me.”

Thomas did. 

Newt held up a finger. “One question. Go.” 

In a small voice, and not quite knowing why, Thomas found himself asking, “Why juniper?” 

It took Newt a minute to answer. When he finally spoke, he said, “Because it doesn’t like the smell.” 

_________

“So, no one has been inside the maze for a year?”

“I will make you sleep out with the goats, Tommy, don’t test me.” 

Newt had threatened that very punishment twice, and to be completely honest, Thomas expected to be back to sleeping outside with the other boys ages ago. He hasn’t had a single nightmare since sleeping up in the room with Newt, but yet he remained. It was for this reason he decided to push his luck as far as the band would stretch. 

Newt laid on his side, facing the wall with his back to Thomas. The shirt he wore to bed was too large around his shoulders and fell on one side when he was standing. Thomas stared at his hands the whole time before Newt fell onto the thin mattress with a deep sigh, stomach fluttering like the wings of the moths in their little cage. Then, in bed, the fabric bunched too much around the boy’s shoulders, and created a crevasse around his neck, and dipped low, where Thomas was able to count the first three vertebras of Newt’s spine. The soft skin where his shoulder met his neck looked tempting, and it certainly wouldn’t take much for Thomas to reach out and— 

“There’s something in there,” Thomas said. Newt’s shoulder’s stilled as he stopped breathing. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“You’re a smarter biscuit than I gave you credit for, Tommy.” He rolled over. Facing each other, the fluttering became worse, and Thomas felt the insane need to hold his breath, not to move, to remain and still as a statue. “I’m going to tell you a story. Are you ready?”

Numbly, joints made from stone, Thomas nodded. 

“When the Glade began, there wasn’t much,” Newt said. “Some goats, berries, and potatoes in a basket. The all did as best as they could with what we were given from the people who put us here, and from the land for as long as we could. Then, one day, Winston cracked open the door to this little hut in the eastern corner that was nailed shut, and he found supplies. Herbs, seeds, buckets and pales, and tools to work the crops. Wood to build and axes to cut down trees, so we didn’t all freeze to death in the winter. We also found books.

“Most of them were mumbo-jumbo, and half didn’t even make any sense, but one in particular—” Newt held up a gold-tipped finger, “—spoke of a creature that lived behind the walls, in a massive maze that stretched on for eternity. Talked in length about its terrifying form made from metal and flesh and how it would devour a person whole before they even had a chance to run. Then we realized the other books weren’t so useless after all, and they talked about the monster. In the books, we found protection wards, herbs to grow to keep it away, images and sigils to hang around the Glade to stop it from entering. Those books saved our lives, Tommy.”

The story amplified by the intensity in Newt’s gaze sucked all the air from the room, and Thomas’s mouth felt dry. Swallowing hard, it took him a moment to find his words again, and, voice cracking, he asked, “But … but how do you know it’s real?”

“How—” Newt blinked multiple times. “You hear it roaring at the moon every night.” 

Thomas frowned. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Yes, you do. You woke up yelling and screaming over it the first week you were here, Tommy.”

“But that wasn’t because I heard some monster screaming behind the walls. It was—”

“Ah, yes,” Newt said, turning over on to his back to glare at the ceiling. “Your ghost girlfriend.” 

“She’s not a ghost, Newt. I think she’s real.”

“She talks to you?”

“She tells me things,” he said, “She says to _go_.”

“Go where? Into the maze? Tommy, no offense, but you need to find better taste in girls, because I’m pretty sure this one’s trying to kill you.” 

Thomas shuffled closer, lifting up to balance on his elbow. “But what if there’s more? What if there’s a whole different world outside the Glade, and the only way to reach it is through the maze? There could be an answer in one of those books. We just need to—”

Newt sat up so fast it almost knocked Thomas backward. Seizing the front of his shirt, Newt leaned in so close that the tips of their noses touched, and in a low voice, he hissed, “ _No_ , Thomas. I know what’s in that maze, and it’s death.”

For minutes that stretched into hours afterward, they lay there in silence, listening to the howl of the wind outside and the faint pitter-patter of rain against the Homestead roof. _Hell is empty, and all the devils are here_ stared down at him like a red-winged warning. He wondered what possessed Newt to write that on his ceiling. 

Eventually, Thomas said, “I’m sorry.” And then he said, “I’m sorry, Newt. I’ll leave.” 

Just as he began to pull the covers back, a hand shot out in the darkness and captured his wrist, keeping him from leaving. Newt said, “And wake all the boys with your nightmare blubbering? They need their sleep, too. Just stay here. And shut up.”

A feeling rose up in Thomas’s chest that he hastily pushed down, and felt grateful that the darkness of the room hid the ridiculous flush that he felt prickle beneath his cheeks. 

“Thanks.”

“I said, shut up.” 

Thomas could not sleep that night.

After a while, once he was sure Newt had drifted away, the other boy turned to him and tapped the center of his forehead twice. “Tick tock, Tommy,” he said.

Thomas took a breath and asked, “Why are your fingers gold?”

It took another wind shift for Newt to answer, and he said, “That I don’t know. I woke up the first day in the forest like this, and it’s never gone away.” 

Chuck had taken to eating breakfast with Thomas in the mornings, the time of day where most of the Glade ignores him. 

These days, Thomas was visibly less sunken-eyed and ashen-faced as he was the first week in the Glade, and everyone noticed. 

A table over, for example, a group of boys ate together, chatting amongst themselves. One of them glanced back at the table Thomas and Chuck sit at, and commented to his friend, loud enough so the whole campsite can hear, “Maybe if I fake having nightmares, I’ll get to snuggle up with the second in charge, too.” 

Thomas wanted to bury his head in the dirt and never remerge. 

Even Chuck’s eyes softened, and his face twisted into an expression of pity. “Just ignore them,” he said. 

In his dreams that night, he saw her again. 

She was signing in the woods. The deep, melodic hum of her voice brushed past Thomas’s cheeks on the wind, and he followed it, calling out her name. The woods stretched paranormally around him as he walked, jumping over stone and branch and splashing through the river until he reached the graveyard. There he found Teresa, humming as she laid small white flowers on each of the graves. 

“How did they die?” he asked, not expecting her to answer. As usual, she did not. 

“It doesn’t matter _how_ ,” a new voice joined the mix, one that made Thomas start, his heart hammering in his chest, “But _why_. I’ve been asking myself that question for years.” 

Newt knelt on the ground not too far from Teresa. In front of him was a plate, a candle, and a bronze chalice. In his hands, he was ripping up some kind of herb and tossing it into the cup, and every time he did, it emitted sparks that floated up to the trees like fireflies. 

“You’re late, greenie.” 

“To what?” 

Newt did not answer. Behind him, Teresa sang a little higher. “Come here,” Newt said, holding out a fruit, “Eat this.” 

Thomas took the fruit. It was a fig. Staring down at it, Thomas asked, “What will it do?”

“It will look after you,” Teresa said, coming up behind him and placing her hands over his eyes. With them, he could see through the second pair painted on her skin. The night was alight with colors that were not visible to him even in the daylight. The trees swayed back and forth in emerald green and the grass ebbed and flowed in time with his breathing, a rich indigo blue. Newt stared up at him from the ground, and he was beautiful—eyes shining like moonstone, gentle and sincere, his hair a veil of gold on his head. 

He was ethereal and impossible, and, in the dream, he was looking up at Thomas like he saw him the same. 

“And it will help you see what’s right in front of your eyes,” Teresa concluded, removing her hands. 

Once she did, Newt began to cough. Chest racking, tears running down his cheeks, doubling over on to the ground; Newt coughed up terrible things. Herbs and berries fell from his lips, and afterward, what seemed like the forest itself—twigs and leaves, small rocks and mud. 

Thomas cried out, yelling for Newt and for Teresa to help him. She was by his side, stroking his hair and whispering in his ear to soothe him as he choked. Finally, gold fell from his lips, glowing under the moonlight as it dripped down his chin and landed in the chalice below. 

Then—moths. 

“Eat the fig, Thomas!” Teresa shouted. “Eat the fig and go! You need to go through the maze and find what’s on the other side! Hurry! Time is running out!” 

Thomas ate the fig. 

Newt disappeared. 

Thomas woke gasping.

_________

Thick fog turned the Glade at midnight into a field of ghosts, and the whisps danced over the farmland in masses. Thomas snuck from the room quickly, somehow, surprising even himself. After weeks of being notorious for waking everyone and everything that lived in the Glade up, Thomas left the Homestead without a single boy stirring. Pulling his jacket tighter over his chest, Thomas made his footsteps as quiet as possible and jogged to the forest. 

The entrance was alight with torches tied to each pillar. That, combined with the icons and structures built around them, created a doorway that screamed _Do Not Enter_ and _Go Back_. This was, he supposed, the idea. Thomas took in a deep breath and entered. 

_Find the door,_ a little voice in the back of his mind whispered to him, and it sounded a lot like Teresa. 

Finding a decent sized branch, Thomas wrapped the piece of cloth he’d borrowed from the Homestead and kissed the tip to the flames until it, too, became alight. Then, he entered. 

Thomas had only just reached the graveyard before he learned he had company. He heard the voices of the Glade keepers shouting fifty or so feet behind him, and without hesitating another moment, Thomas ran as fast as he could to the Glade’s edge. 

_The door the door the door,_ his mind chanted. It was a symphony stacked on top of each other as Thomas raced, frantically, to find the exit. _It’s around here somewhere, find it find it find it._

It was apparent that the others had spotted the glow of his torch and were running towards Thomas. Lungs heaving with exhaustion and panic, Thomas crowded behind a tree and worked to make himself as small as possible while he thought. The grey wall of the maze had revealed itself to him, then, and Thomas could see that most of it was covered in thick ropes of vine and ivy that crossed and spun and weaved itself around each other in a complicated mess of tendrils. They looked almost impossible to break through on his own, at least not without the assistance of a knife. 

Thomas squeezed his eyes shut and laid his head back against the tree, chest still raking with breaths that made the tip of his tongue feel numb, and his knees strained to hold him up. Then, a thought reached him—

 _The fig,_ Teresa had said, _it will help you see what’s right in front of your eyes._

Thomas had eaten the fig. 

Closing his eyes, he thought of the dream and saw it—the door, right behind where Newt knelt down above the chalice, wide and tall but covered in a vine that gave the illusion of a narrow archway. 

Or a portal.

Gripping his torch tight, Thomas took one last deep breath and ran. 

A deep cold wrapped itself around him in a tight embrace, and when Thomas breathed, frost expelled from his lips. The maze walls stretched higher than he could see, the very tops clouded by ivy and low hanging clouds. Below was much the same, where instead of ivy a wispy fog lined the halls like carpet. Thomas found a small alcove and crouched against the corner, laying the torch down carefully at his feet and warming his hands. 

_Rest now,_ a voice said to him, _and travel in the morning._

“Teresa,” he said, “is that you?” 

No response. 

Unconsciousness took him.

_________

Sunlight fell upon the walls of the maze, drawing lower and lower until Thomas felt the warm rays on his skin, waking him up. He noticed two things—first, the torch had gone out, and second, there was a red string trailing on the ground, bright in the morning light. Thomas squinted at it through blurry eyes and watched as it moved every so often, stretching further on or falling. Thomas sat up higher to get a better look at it, and as he did, he knocked the torch and watched it roll to a slow stop several feet away.

The red string stopped moving for a moment, and Thomas found himself holding his breath as he watched it lay still on the stone floor. 

Then the end of the string appeared, and so did Newt. 

“Tommy!” he cried, surging forward. He wore a jacket with a woolen trim, and held a second one that he threw at Thomas, and carried a small bag around his shoulder. In his hands he held a ball of yarn the size of his head. The tail of it disappeared from sight. “Where did you—I’ve been looking all night!” 

“I’m sorry,” Thomas said, “I’m sorry, Newt.” 

“That doesn’t matter now. Come on, let’s go.” 

“I’m not going back.”

“You’re _not_ _going back?”_

Thomas shook his head. Newt rolled back on the balls of his feet. “I have to keep going forward.”

“Thomas,” Newt said, gesturing to the walls of the maze around them, “I don’t think you quite get what this is. People get lost in here. They die.”

“And I don’t think you get what this is, either.” Thomas shuffled forward on his knees until he was directly in front of Newt, and took both of his hands in his. “You said it yourself, you don’t really know what happens in here.” 

“Tommy,” Newt whispered, gripping his hands back. “There is a creature in here that will not hesitate to rip us limb from limb the moment it sees us. After it’s done with deconstruction, it will then devour whatever is left.”

“You only know this because you read it in a book?”

“Yes.”

“And because you hear it roaring every night.”

“ _Yes_.”

“Well, I’ve never heard it.”

“And aren’t you just the luckiest penny of the bunch,” Newt spat, tearing his hands away. Thomas missed the warmth instantly. Falling back against the wall of the small alcove, Newt pulled his knees to his chest and dropped his head on top of them, winding his arms tight around his legs. 

Thomas asked, “Why do you have that yarn?”

Newt’s shoulders jumped with silent laughter, and with muffled words, he said, “To find our way back. I secured it to a tree at the edge of the Glade and tied a bell to it. Minho and Gally are keeping guard. I told them if the bell doesn’t ring, it means we’re dead, and we’re not coming back.”

“Have you rang it yet?”

“No.” 

Thomas frowned. “Why not?”

Newt lifted his head from his arms. Purple bags stained his fair skin, and his eyes above them were tired and weary. He must have been up all night looking, jumping at every noise. Sighing, he said, “Because I haven’t decided if I’m going to drag you back to the Glade by your hair, or if I’m coming with you on whatever insane suicide mission you’ve set yourself on.” 

Thomas blinked, sitting up straighter. “Coming with me?” 

“Don’t get me wrong,” Newt said, “I think you’re the biggest idiot I’ve ever met. But something … I can’t shake this feeling in my gut that’s telling me to go forward. Also—”

When Newt reached into the small bag he carried with him and pulled out the cage of moths, Thomas felt his jaw drop. Strange was the cage of moths existing in this maze at all, but stranger still was their behavior, as all the moths flew in one direction pointing down the remainder of the long hallway. 

“Watch this,” Newt said and spun the cage towards Thomas. The moths moved with it, to continue flying in the same direction as they were. 

Thomas’s mind flashed back to the dream, of the gold dripping from Newt’s lips and the moths that flew from his mouth. 

“Think this means something?” 

“Absolutely,” Thomas said, leaning his face closer to the cage. 

“Well, then,” Newt said, handing it over to Thomas. “Let’s go.” 

He pulled at the yarn until it was taunt and tugged on it firmly. Somewhere past the walls, further than they could hear, a bell was ringing. 

“I have a theory,” Thomas said. 

“Please tell me,” Newt responded, voice dripping in sarcasm. A ray of afternoon light sliced diagonally downwards from the sky, and Newt stepped into it. For a moment, it looked as if he was made of light himself, skin lit up from beneath the surface to shine outwards, and then a moment later, the shadows behind him formed into wings. Then, Thomas blinked, and he was back to normal. 

He worried he might be getting sunstroke. 

“Okay,” Thomas said, after rubbing his eyes, “What if there is no monster.” 

“We’re really on this again?” 

“Every month a new boy is dropped into the Glade with no memory of a life before,” Thomas said, “What if whoever or whatever put us here is using the fear of some creature to keep us inside.”

Newt stopped walking. “What purpose would that serve?” 

Thomas stopped as well. The sun was dipping further behind the walls, and soon it will be dark again. “I don’t know,” he said, “To keep us in line. To watch us?” 

“Watch us? You think we’re being watched?” 

Thomas shrugged. “We could be. Why else would we all be here?”

Newt bit his lip, face twisting thoughtfully. “Well,” he said, “that makes the hieros gamos a little embarrassing.” 

Thomas stared. “What’s that?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” he said and walked on without another word, mouth twisted into a smug grin. Bristling, Thomas hurried after him. 

Before the sun could completely disappear behind the giant stone walls of the maze, Thomas and Newt came upon a broken section of it, where two adjacent pieces of wall had been halved in a way that made it look as if a giant from the sky came down and smashed it with their massive fist. The rubble at the foot had created a staircase of sorts that lead up to a larger alcove twenty feet up. 

They climbed, lifting each other along the way until both boys collapsed bonelessly at the edge. After a day of walking their legs felt like jelly, and their bones and joints ached. The moths complained about the temporary halt, and Thomas lifted the cage up to his face and whispered, “Shhh. We’re just taking a break.” 

Newt snorted—a chest jumping, racking laugh. “You’re talking to the moths now.” 

“You talk to them, too,” Thomas said, slapping Newt’s thigh with the back of his hand. It was weak. 

“Yeah, well.” Newt waved a hand in the air, and that was all. “They’re good moths.” 

“You’re talking about them like they’re dogs or something.”

Newt huffed. “Listen, Tommy. Some people have dogs. Others have tiny winged insects that can navigate an endless maze.”

“Have you ever seen a dog?”

“No,” Newt said, “But I know what they look like. Weird, huh?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said. “Me, too. Weird.” 

The conversation dropped, as did the sun in the sky, and soon it was dark. Soon they were both asleep. 

Dreams. Again. Of course. 

Thomas woke to his name being called softly in the echoey cavern they rested in. “Tommy,” Newt whispered, “Tommy, wake up.”

Groaning, Thomas rubbed his eyes and muttered, “What is it?”

“Come here.”

“Huh?”

“Come _here_.”

When Thomas opened his eyes, he found the night cloaked in blue, beautiful and bright, and when he turned, he saw Newt close to him, closer than he thought he was, much the same. He looked like he did in the field—glowing and ethereal and ancient. To be able to gaze at him felt like a worthiness that Thomas did not possess, but he looked regardless. Newt smiled and said again, “Come here.” 

A hand touched Thomas’s cheek and drew him in. Golden fingers left marks on his jaw, and a golden kiss left him breathless. Newt’s lips moving against his own made Thomas’s head spin so fast it left him dizzy, and the warmth of Newt’s skin against his lit a fire in his belly that rose to his chest and threatened to burst outwards in tiny little embers. 

He opened his eyes, and the moths were dancing happily in their cage, glowing with delight. 

With a tender smile, Newt said, “It’s okay.”

Thomas asked, “What’s okay?” 

Newt did not answer as an arm came out from behind him and circled his waist in a tight embrace. On the back of the hand was an eye. Teresa lifted up on her elbows and smiled at Thomas encouragingly before her hand moved over to cover Newt’s eyes. 

“Almost there,” She said, and Thomas woke up. 

_“Tommy!”_

Gasping, Thomas shot up from the floor with his heart hammering in his chest. Newt stopped shaking him, but his hands still gripped Thomas’s arm tight enough that his fingers turned numb. His eyes were wide and full of fright and something else that he couldn’t quite place, and his gaze flit about the walls of the maze like he was seeing them for the first time. 

“Tommy,” he began, slowly, “Your ghost girlfriend. Does she have eyes drawn on her hands?”

“Not my girlfriend,” he said, instantly, “And yes, she does.”

Newt waved a vague hand by his chest. “Long black hair?”

“Yeah …”

“Shit.” 

Then: a roar. 

It shook the walls of the maze. Thomas felt it rattle his bones, and he jumped back, shouting out, dragging Newt with him to the very back of the cave. The roar lasted all of ten seconds, but Thomas could have sworn it lasted longer, and his heart stopping beating along with it. By the time the cry of the monster dimmed to a low whine that chimed off the walls of the maze and traveled deeper to terrify all the insects and other small creatures that scurried along the halls, Thomas realized he had crowded Newt between himself and the wall. 

And Newt was laughing. 

“Did you hear _that_ , Greenie?” 

“I heard it.” Thomas swallowed. “Newt?”

“Yes?”

“What else did you see in your dream?” he asked, and when Newt’s cheeks, even in the darkness of the cave lit only by the torch some feet away, turned the loveliest shade of pink, he knew. 

_________

The exit revealed itself to them when Newt’s ball of yarn shrunk to the size of a marble in his hands. Sunlight poured over the walls of the maze and showered them in warmth, and Thomas felt that after a sleepless night spent in a cold cave, he’d never felt anything better. The moths danced excitedly in their cage as Thomas tipped his head back and basked in the morning light, disturbed only by Newt tugging on the sleeve of his shirt, repeating his name over and over until he responded.

Perhaps he was delirious. Perhaps Newt did not intend for a two-night stay in the maze and they ran out of food and water last night, but Newt might be the most amazing thing he had ever laid eyes on in his life, which only began a month ago. Thomas counted the days in his head and wondered if a new boy woke up in the forest last night. Did Minho and the other keepers see him wake, or had they realized quickly that Newt and Thomas weren’t coming back, thinking them dead, and left? 

Thomas hummed in question at the urgency in Newt’s gaze, and when Newt grabbed both his shoulders and spun him in the direction he wanted him to look, the moths complaining as they are swung in his hand, Thomas saw it. 

The end of the maze.

The archway was built from ivy and vines just like the one at the edge of the Glade. Except instead of being veiled in darkness, it is bathed in light. 

“Shuck me, you were right,” Newt gasped, awestruck. Then he laughed and spun Thomas around again to kiss him hard on the lips. 

“Still thought some horror creature would eat us?” Thomas asked against Newt’s mouth, tugging him closer by his waist. 

Newt groaned and kissed him some more. Then he said, “Maybe a little,” and they kissed until the morning light fell to the middle of the walls. When they were done, Newt leaned his forehead against Thomas’s and sighed deeply through his nose, and the two boys stood leaning against the wall until their breaths evened out, and their hearts beat in unison. 

“Ready?” Thomas asked.

“More than ever,” Newt said. 

The creature roared once more just as they were about the reach the archway, and it was closer than ever. Thomas and Newt dropped to the floor, fingers digging into stone, and breath disturbing the dirt and pebbles and the fine hair that fell over their foreheads. The earth shook as it had last night and chattered Thomas’s teeth hard enough to numb his jaw. Newt’s pinkie finger curled around his. 

“Newt?”

“My ears are ringing.”

“Newt.”

“What?”

“Did you hear that?”

“Did I—” Newt laughs. He rolled onto his side and lifted, unglamorously, off the ground. “Hurry.”

“Newt, wait,” Thomas tried. 

“Tommy,” Newt grabbed him by his sleeve, “Hurry, or we will die. If we don’t get to that door—”

Thomas gripped his arm and stood up. Cutting him off, he said, “Just _listen_.”

With panicked eyes, hissed, “Listen to what?” 

On cue, the creature roared again, and they both heard it this time: the metallic, artificial edge to the cry that spiraled up in the air and bounced back down on top of them. “It’s—”

“A horn.”

As they passed through the door, the last bit of yarn finally unraveled in Newt’s hands, falling to the grassy floor of a forest very similar to their own back in the Glade. Thomas and Newt stared at it for a moment, dumbfounded and astonished. “It was just enough,” Newt said in a far away voice. 

“I don’t suppose we can ring the bell again?” Thomas said. 

“You’ll be tugging away for a while—Oi. Wipe that grin off your face,” Newt said, and they both laughed and continued on. 

They quickly learned that this forest was much smaller than theirs and smaller, too. The trees did not stretch tall and thin with spindles protruding from the base like the pines in the Glade but began wider at the trunk and thinned outwards as it grew tall and smooth upwards towards the sky. Roots wove over the base and curved in and out of the ground like tiny sea monsters that fell into the scattered rivers and streams that ran deeper into the forest. They followed the current direction until they reached the end of the forest to run straight into a line up of people holding long sticks in their hands. 

The sticks were a collection of crudely made spears, and the people were _girls_.

They also looked as if they were expecting something very different to exit the forest rather than Thomas and Newt. By the expression on some of their faces, Thomas almost felt compelled to apologize for it. 

“They’re … boys,” one of them said to the others, “They’re just _boys_.” 

Most of the girls instantly huddled together to whisper amongst themselves, while two others kept their eyes locked on Newt and Thomas. One had thick, dark hair braided into locks, while the other was fair and blonde. The first held a spear, and the other held a horn. 

Thomas began forward, hearing Newt squawk behind him and hurry to catch up. 

“Easy, Tommy,” he said. 

“Stay back!” The girl holding the spear said, jabbing it forward threateningly. “I mean it!” 

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Thomas exclaimed. The girls gave him a funny look in response. 

Newt leaned in close and whispered, “I don’t think they’re too worried about that, Tommy.” 

“You came out of the maze,” The girl holding the horn said, using it to point at the forest. “Nothing comes out of the maze.” 

Thomas couldn’t help but find himself momentarily distracted as he noticed how similar and not similar this Glade, if they called it that, was to theirs. There were crops in the center and wildlife to the left of it in an area that sloped up a hill, and what looked like their version of the campsite to the far right. Instead of one large building like they had with the Homestead, various huts and tents clustered together at the very peak of the hill. 

Where their Glade was flat, this Glade was built on a hillside. 

Newt said, “Well, we did. And believe me, I’m just as surprised about that as you are.” 

“But …” Another girl said, breaking off from the larger cluster of girls, who have now moved further back, “Buy what about the demon?”

“The what?”

“The demon. The monster. The one that lives in the maze.”

Thomas and Newt shared a look before he turned back to the girls and said, “There is no monster. Believe us, we just spent two whole nights in that thing to get here and didn’t see it once.” 

“But … but the books said to blow this horn every morning and night to keep it at bay, or it’ll—” 

“Come in here and kill everyone?” Newt said, “Yeah. We have books like that too back in our home. It looks kind of like this. But our books tell us to put up wards and use magic to scare away a creature that sounds an awful like the horn you blew just before. That was you, right?”

The blonde girl turned to her friend and said, in a hushed tone she didn’t know they could still hear, “Do you think it’s them? The ones Tee was talking about?”

The other girl shook her head. “No, it can’t be them. They’re so—” She looked back at Thomas and Newt with narrowed eyes, nose crunching up in displeasure, “ordinary.” 

Newt bristled, “Hey—” 

“Tee? Did you say Tee?” Thomas cut in, asking, “I’m looking for someone named Teresa. Is she here?”

The girls moved, and Thomas saw her. She was standing in front of the fence, leaning down to pet a small goat before she looked up and saw him, too. She called out his name and ran straight to him. Catching her in a tight embrace, the wind was knocked from Thomas’s lungs at the force of her slamming into him, and her dark hair flew around her shoulders untamed, tickling his nose. Thomas noticed she was shorter than she appeared to him in his dreams, but everything else was the same, right down to the tattoos on her hands. 

“I guess that answers that question, then.” 

When she was done with Thomas, she moved on to Newt, pulling him into a gentler embrace. His eyes grew wide with shock, and his hands hovered unsurely several inches over her back. 

“It’s so good to finally meet you both properly,” she said, her voice lower and huskier than it sounded in his dreams. 

“Ditto,” Newt said, clearing his throat. 

The blonde girl was looking at Newt strangely, head tilted a fraction with a furrowed brow. Slowly, she said, “Your hands … they’re gold.” 

Newt stared down at his hands like he was seeing them for the first time, and then back at the girl, who was holding up her palm to show gold-tipped fingers, just like his. 

“I’m Harriet,” The girl holding the spear said, moving closer, “This is Sonya and Miyoko. You said your home is like ours? And there are others?”

Newt stared at Sonya with an unreadable expression, and she stared back with the same. Startingly, Thomas looked between them and noticed a strong similarity in the bridge of their noses and the shape of their foreheads. Thomas took his hand and squeezed it tight, and that seemed to break the spell. When Newt turned to him, Thomas wanted very much to lean in and press a kiss to the soft skin of his lips, or against his jaw, or his cheek, but felt the piercing gaze of the girls on them. 

When he faced them again, they were smirking. He pressed a quick kiss to Newt’s cheek anyway. 

“We do,” Thomas said. “But they probably think we’ve been eaten by now.”

“Well, then,” Harriet grinned. “They’ll shit their pants when they find out they’re wrong.” 

Brushing hair behind her ear, Teresa stepped back to join the girls. The eyes on her hands did not look like paint in the real world, but more like actual tattoos. The iris was still blue, but a darker hue than he thought, almost black. She wore thin white pants rather than the dress, and while the bottoms of them were still brown with mud, her feet were not bare.

Teresa said, “Welcome to the Spring.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Othala: Meaning homeland, and ancestral spiritual power.  
> Uruz: Meaning strength, endurance, determination and health.


End file.
